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Monday, October 7, 2013

Butternut Squash Soup

One of the yummy vegetables we planted in our garden this year was butternut squash. (Actually, technically, I think these are a fruit? Ah well. It doesn’t really matter.) Our butternut squash plants didn’t fair too well… they got attacked by some strange wilt disease. But we did manage to get about 6-8 squash to play with. I tossed one into this Garden Veggie Stew, and made most of the rest into soup!

Start off with 1-2 diced onions. Toss them in a large stock pot with 2 Tablespoons of butter. Saute the onions in the butter until they start to turn tender and translucent.

Peel, seed, and cut one medium-large butternut squash (2-3 pounds) into 1-inch pieces. Add the squash to the pot.

Add up to 6 cups of chicken broth. The more liquid you add, the thinner your soup will be. I like my butternut squash soup to be pretty thick, so I just went with 4 cups of broth.

Bring the mixture to a boil. Then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the squash is tender. Using an immersion blender (or working in batches with your regular blender like I did), puree the soup to the desired consistency. I prefer mine to be more creamy, so I went a little longer on the blending.

Season with nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and pepper to taste. (Go easy on the salt and pepper – the nutmeg and cinnamon are what really bring out the flavor in this soup!) I tend to go a little heavy on the nutmeg, but that’s just me.

We ended up with way more soup than we needed to eat right then, so most of it went into the freezer! This will be a great treat this fall and winter – there’s nothing quite like thick and creamy homemade butternut squash soup (in a homemade bread bowl, of course!) on a cold fall or winter night!